Agree wholeheartedly, this team is a joke as I said before. My personal understanding is, Gayle single-handedly refused any high performance senior players to be included just to show his own capacity. Now Shiva is not part of the argument as he is more of a test mode grafter guy.

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"And do not curse those who call on other than GOD, lest they blaspheme and curse GOD, out of ignorance. We have adorned the works of every group in their eyes. Ultimately, they return to their Lord, then He informs them of everything they had done." (Qur'an 6:108)

West Indies have bowled 49.5 overs in two hours and 52 minutes, that's 38 minutes sooner than the allotted time. Hence they will come back to bat in 10 minutes - they'll have about 25 minutes of batting before the lunch break. And they will consider themselves favourites going into the chase, after a professional bowling and fielding show.

Originally Posted by offstump
the poor technique and application of WI batsmen in a turning pitch against zimbabwe spinners is making, cremer look like warne, lamb look like harbhajan and TAIBU look like MISHFIQUE

and a bowling line up of Shakib, Raj, Shuvo, naeem and riadh would be simply unplayable here

As much as they may have spoken about the honour of representing their country, the prospect of playing ODIs against Bangladesh and Kenya for the rest of their lives was hardly mouth-watering.

Three years ago they were lucky to get a game against anybody. The domestic game had all but disappeared and cricket had crashed as surely as the country's economy. There was little hope, even among many of the optimists.

But the past 12 months have witnessed a revolution of the most constructive sort and the structure of the game has been rebuilt with astonishing speed and determination.

Now there are five professional domestic franchises, including the previously disregarded regions in the eastern highlands, mid-west and deep south, based on the blueprint from Cricket South Africa.

Each board is independent and financial regulations are stringent, with a "no exceptions" policy from Zimbabwe Cricket regarding requests for funding above the US$750000 provided upfront.

Zimbabwe sceptics will, understandably, raise eyebrows at the brutal frugality of the initiative given the allegations of financial impropriety aimed at ZC managing director Ozias Bvute and chairman Peter Chingoka during the early and mid 2000s. But in the absence of anything concrete, locals have moved on from hearsay and whispers.

"It's time to draw a line in the sand and move forward," says former captain and current cricket committee chairman Alistair Campbell. "How long do people want to carry on about what happened in the past?"

Heath Streak remains the highest profile of those who walked away from the game, having led the "rebel players" back in 2002. He is now the national team bowling coach and as fanatical about Zimbabwe cricket as he ever was.

"For me it's very simple. It's a lot better to be constructive than destructive and positive rather than negative."

Zimbabwe staged its inaugural T20 tournament in the nine days before the national squad departed for a six-match tour of the Caribbean two weeks ago and the final - between the Mountaineers of Hamilton Masakadza and Elton Chigumbura's Mashonaland Eagles - was attended by a crowd of 7000, more than Harare Sports Club has hosted in well over a decade.

Bvute took it as a irrefutable evidence that his passionate campaign to "indigenise" the game was working.

If collective determination swings it, the domestic system will survive and flourish and ZC's stated goal of returning to Test cricket within 12 to 18 months could be attained.